Layman Pang's Sudden Enlightenment

"Layman Pang" was originally from Hengyang in the southern Chinese province of Hunan. He was a successful merchant with a wife, son, and daughter. His wealth allowed him to devote much time to meditation and the study of Buddhist sutras, in which the entire family became well-versed.

Pang built himself a small hut to do sitting meditation for hours every day when he wasn't reading the sutras. One day, reading a sutra with his family, he cried out: "Difficult! Difficult! Like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree."

"Easy, easy," Mrs. Pang said; "like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed."

He eventually moved on to Jiangxi province to study with Master Ma-Tzu. He approached Ma-Tzu with the same question that he had initially asked Shitou: "Who is the one who is not a companion to the ten thousand dharmas?"

Ma-Tzu said: "I'll tell you after you've swallowed up the West River in one gulp."

"At the Gateless Barrier"

At the Gateless Barrier, I play the old tunes on my bamboo flute./It's cold at night and everybody weeps to hear the ancient songs./Yet Zen is without sentiment.

I write. I do Zen. I play the bamboo flute.

"Great Nature, Great Manifestation, Great Realization." What does this mean? Every aspect of this life, which is Zen Enlightenment itself, is "great." Whether wonderful or terrifying or both it always "is" in a way that cannot be explained. Just try to explain it. Can you, or can't you?

It's just like when Master Ko Bong shouted "That's it! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" and broke his fan. Do you get it, or not? If you can tell me what you get, I'll bow to you. If you can't, I'll call you my Master. Either way, you win.

For more notes, poems and aphorisms: go here.See also 老虎: Lao Hu. Contact me at jyakunen(at)gmail.com.

Talk to the Moktak

There is nothing in the world bigger than the tip of an autumn hair, and Mount T'ai is little. No one has lived longer than a dead child, and P'eng-tsu died young. Heaven and earth were born at the same time I was, and the ten thousand things are one with me.-Master Chuang-Tzu